Don't worry about Drew Brees, he'll be fine after Thursday. In fact the whole offense will be fine. Brees will be fine, Bush will make fines, Colston will be solid, McAllister will pound away and the offensive line will run people over.

The Saints weakness will be the defense. They have a pass rush and little else. Their secondary is slow, the linebackers miss too many tackles and the defensive line can be pushed around.

But this is the NFC and a team with a solid offense can ignore a sieve-like defense on their way to the playoffs.

Carolina Panthers - 9-7 - Wild Card

Schedule

L - at St. Louis

L - Houston

W - at Atlanta

W - Tampa Bay

W - at New Orleans

W - at Arizona

bye

L - Indianapolis

L - at Tennessee

W - Atlanta

W - at Green Bay

L - New Orleans

W - San Francisco

W - at Jacksonville

W - Seattle

L - Dallas

L - at Tampa Bay

If a quarterback controversy breaks out then you can just throw this prediction out. When David Carr starts looking like a good option to start, your team is in trouble. Steve Smith and a fine collection of possession receivers will make Jake Delhomme look just good enough. The sooner the Panthers realize that DeShaun Foster just isn't good and hand the job over to DeAngelo Williams the better they'll be.

John Fox is smart enough to cover the weaknesses in his defense. There is still some potential in that unit, though it is overly frail. The Carolina defense won't carry the team to victory, but it won't drag them to defeat either.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 7-9

Schedule

W - at Seattle

L - New Orleans

L - St. Louis

L - at Carolina

L - at Indianapolis

W - Tennessee

L - at Detroit

W - Jacksonville

W - Arizona

bye

W - at Atlanta

W - Washington

L - at New Orleans

L - at Houston

L - Atlanta

L - at San Francisco

W - Carolina

Tampa Bay is a bad team. With the defense aging and the offense lacking, they need to just take the shot and rebuild.

The Bucs have rounded themselves up quite a collection of signal callers. The thing is, when you have a quantity of something, it tends to lack quality. Jeff Garcia, Chris Simms and the "retired" Jake Plummer are quarterbacks that you can win with if you surround them with a plethora of talents. They won't carry a team. John Gruden will do his best, but in the end he'll probably lose his job.

Atlanta Falcons - 4-12

Schedule

L - at Minnesota

L - at Jacksonville

L - Carolina

L - Houston

L - at Tennessee

L - NY Giants

L - at New Orleans

bye

W - San Francisco

L - at Carolina

L - Tampa Bay

L - Indianapolis

L - at St. Louis

L - New Orleans

W - at Tampa Bay

W - at Arizona

W - Seattle

I gave serious consideration to the Falcons as my sleeper. There is the Ewing theory potential from the loss of Vick, a running back by committee, a defense with potential and a hot new coach.

I decided against for a couple of reasons. Joey Harrington is just bad. He doesn't need a change of scenery, he just needs to not start. Warrick Dunn is old, Jerious Norwood is unproven, the team lacks an offensive line and quality receivers outside of Alge Crumpler. The defense has potential, but key players in Rod Coleman and John Abraham have injury issues.

Bobby Petrino may be the hot new coach, but he is from the college ranks and recent history has shown us in Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, and such that college is not where you want to find your head coach.